Anyone who has bought “white” LED devices knows that the light is not quite white. Michael Bowers, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University, has discovered an alternative method of producing white LEDs with a broad spectrum while remaining cool to the touch. This discovery will certainly make its way to architectural lighting and large scale applications as LED production costs drop. Bowers’ method also indicates possibilities to provide illumination through chemical processes in a luminescent paint to transform any surface into an light source.

via Exploration | Treehugger | Worldchanging

The Florida Advanced Center for Composite Technologies (FAC2T) under the direction of Ben Wang, is working to develop real-world applications for Buckypaper, a material made of carbon nanotubes. The film holds potential for use in illuminating devices, heat sinks, armor, and electromagnetic protective skins. [press release]

via Physorg

Dr. Angela Belcher and her group at MIT are developing an organic-inorganic hybrid method of growing batteries. By forcing viruses to interact with materials like metals, Dr. Belcher is exploring new materials that are self assembling with a high degree of control based on the chosen DNA sequence. Imagine selecting DNA for any type of material you want the virus to grow. [Discover Article]

via Medgadget | ScienCentral

Robert A. Freitas‘ dermal display concept functions as a medical nanorobot control center to keep one’s health in check. His book, Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities, is the first technical design study of nanotechnology in medicine and medical nanorobotics. Watch Gina Miller‘s animation of the dermal display concept. [video (qt)]

via Medgadget

“Computing isn’t just confined to semiconductors. Molecules have been processing information ever since life has been around on our planet. Harnessing this remarkable ability really does have the potential to make a big difference to people’s lives.” For the first time, chemists at Queen’s University Belfast, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have managed to manipulate molecules to perform logic operations based on the principles of photosynthesis.

via Physorg | BBC

A smart surface propels the droplet forward (scale 1mm)

Researcher from the University of Texas, Dallas, and Australia’s CSIRO have a new dry-state method of self-assembling carbon nanotube ribbons at a whopping 7 meters per minute! (I’m sure in just a few years the exclamation point will look ridiculous.) [video]

via WorldChanging | EurekAlert

With the help of nanotachonlogy, foggy windows, foggy goggles, and foggy glasses are about to meet the ultimate anti-fog treatment developed by a group of scientists at MIT. Soon, you’ll be telling your kids how, back in the day, you used to entertain yourself by writing profanities in foggy windows.

When fogging occurs, thousands of tiny water droplets condense on glass and other surfaces. The droplets scatter light in random patterns, causing the surfaces to become translucent or foggy. . . The new coating prevents this process from occurring, primarily through its super-hydrophilic, or water-loving, nature, Rubner says. The nanoparticles in the coating strongly attract the water droplets and force them to form much smaller contact angles with the surface. As a result, the droplets flatten and merge into a uniform, transparent sheet rather than forming countless individual light-scattering spheres. “The coating basically causes water that hits the surfaces to develop a sustained sheeting effect, and that prevents fogging,”

via EurekAlert

The long anticipated Nanofactory animation, titled “Productive Nanosystems: from Molecules to Superproducts” by Lizard Fire Studios with the support of Nanorex, is now version 1.0. [animation] [slide show]

Thanks, John!

NanoCAD takes a stab a modeling at the nanoscale through molecular mechanics.

1. Break open a Buckyball to create and discover something new.
2. Win a Nobel Prize.

Researchers at the National Institute for Nanotechnology (University of Alberta) have demonstrated for the first time that the charge of a single atom on a silicon surface can switch the conductivity of a nearby molecule. Robert Wolkow and his team’s demonstration bring nano electronics a leap forward into reality, as the technology moves hence forward with proof of a molecular transistor. [press release]

via Edmonton Journal

Photo courtesy of the National Research Council of Canada